ENG-1976 — Page 184

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IMMIGRATION AND TOURISM

Vietnam. During the year 8,493 applications were received in respect of about 8,531 people, and each month sees a steady increase in such cases.

Although immigration from China has declined from 76,745 in 1973 to 27,599 in 1976, it still creates a considerable problem in Hong Kong. The figures include illegal immigrants whose numbers are impossible to estimate exactly. During the year 810 illegal immigrants were repatriated to China, as well as 216 to Taiwan and 604 to Macau.

More than 200,000 immigrants from China and Vietnam have been resettled since 1971 and Hong Kong's acceptance of such numbers has been matched by few countries.

Since late 1975 the Immigration Department has been scrutinising new admissions to prisons, to identify criminal illegal immigrants who might be deportable. Together with continued vetting of all legal immigrants convicted of criminal offences, this is part of the department's active support for law and order. It led to a record number of 90 deportation orders being approved by the Governor in Council in 1976.

Personal Documentation

The fees for travel documents were increased in March. Fees for passports were doubled from $60 to $120, but re-entry permits which are used by many local residents for travel to China or Macau went up by only $5 to $15.

As immigration restrictions have become progressively tighter in many parts of the world, including Hong Kong, so the traffic in false travel documents has grown. This trafficking not only undermines immigration control of the target country but also damages the international standing of the authority purported to have issued the document. Various methods of improving the security of Hong Kong's travel documents are under consideration by the Immigration Department, including a new method of engraving photographs directly onto the travel document. A section specialising in the detection of false travel documents has been established, resulting in several successful prosecutions. False travel documents of various nationalities with supporting identity cards, driving licences and vaccination certificates, together with false stamps and seals-all of good quality and sufficient to supply several hundred people with completely new identities-were seized late in the year. The estimated black market retail value of the haul was about $30 million.

Tourism

For the fifth consecutive year, Hong Kong received more than a million visitors during 1976. There were 1,559,977 arrivals-a 20 per cent increase over 1975. Tourism remained the second largest source of foreign earnings, amounting to $3,750 million. This was 26 per cent higher than in the previous year.

More visitors came from Japan than any other country. They comprised 28 per cent of the total. Southeast Asia followed with 24 per cent, the United States with 15 per cent, Western Europe with 12 per cent, and Australia and New Zealand with 11 per cent.